A busy Burgham

We had a busy but fun five days up at Burgham, with four 6 year old mares all doing their first stay away. Leo, the legend, was stabled in between them and he kept them all calm and cool and was a really good boy. Ellie jumped four clears inside the time XC, we had a lot of rain on the Saturday afternoon so the SJ for the 2* was a bit splashy and wet but it was a really interesting event, very educational for the younger horses and we came back with five very happy horses all having performed really well. Thank you Burgham for a great event.

We were lucky enough to have the Olympics on in the stable managers tent with Mark Phillips, so were able to watch the incredible performances from the British Equestrian Eventing Team riders. I have to say I’m very proud to be British and just delighted for the team bringing back the Gold, and for Laura Collett who performed beautifully and thoroughly deserved her Bronze medal.

A special mention to the Japanese team who over the last 20 years have worked so hard with Angela Tucker, who is just a legend. I was so delighted for them. And also to Alex Hua Tian who was unlucky to get his 15 penalties XC, just like Ros, but his SJ rounds were just beautiful.

Congratulations to Chris Burton – what a legend he is – and Ben Hobday for producing Shadow Man so well that someone like Chris who is phenomenal can get on and achieve that incredible result in just a few months.

There are so many good stories to come out of the Olympics. Well done to everybody and thank you for giving us great entertainment and making us proud to be British. Let’s hope we can continue this to the next Olympics!